1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and a system for monitoring use of digital works for copyright protection. Particularly, the present invention relates to monitoring method and system of digital works such as digital image or music for preventing inappropriate use thereof when they are reproduced for use and for facilitating an appropriate and smooth distribution of digital works through a computer network or the Internet. The present invention also relates to a digital work recording unit and digital work reproducing unit used in this system.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, with a development of a digital signal processing technology and a computer technology, various copyright works have been easily digitized at low cost and used popularly. For example, general computer users or an unspecified number of users such as small-scale corporations can create original digital works by themselves in these days. In addition, a vast amount of commercial records, movies, art, craftworks, or architectural works, and books owned by individuals or organizations have been digitized as music software, video software, image software, and publication software, respectively, for use.
These digitized copyright works (called digital works or digital contents) can be easily used by using a personal computer (called PC or simply computer) or a digital equipment. Particularly, via an information network such as the Internet, these digital works can be distributed very easily to individual users and non-profit users. Furthermore, users can copy these digital works or alter them for use very easily.
On the other hand, the conventional copyright law is intended for protecting copyright owners, creators, and distributors on the presupposition that a software quality is degraded by copying a work (if it is image software, for example, an image quality is degraded by copying). In other words, it is used for a proprietor (a creator or an assignee of a copyright) to exercise his or her copyright to make a creator copy it for sale, which brings up and develops record, video, and publication industries or their circulation systems so as to distribute these records, videos, and publications to final users via the circulation systems.
Also in the digital work distribution industry, conventionally a copyright proprietor gives a right of making (copying) a digital package media by means of a CD-ROM or a DVD (a digital video disc or a digital versatile disc) or a right of granting copying on the network to a server which is a distribution enterprise. Therefore, a user of a digital work has accessed to a server having stored masters of digital contents in order to obtain electronic digital copies.
However, in recent years, general individual users or small-scale corporations or organizations can easily purchase commercially available personal computers (PC) or production tool software such as an encoder. Therefore, it becomes possible for the individual users or the small-scale corporations or organizations to create (digitizing or reproducing) contents which has conventionally been created by corporations specializing in a software industry by spending a large amount of techniques and funds.
An individual""s use of the contents for his or her own convenience with digital techniques is not an infringement under the conventional copyright law, and therefore it is impossible to take a legal action considering it to be an illegal act. In view of a future development of the digital technology, it is inappropriate to inhibit all of these acts.
Accordingly, it is necessary to establish a new rights protection system for protecting rightful claimants in the age of digital media. Therefore, the applicant of the present invention suggests a new system described below (hereinafter referred to as a digital transfer rights). In other words, this new system actualizes the following:
i) Granting that a user uses a digital work for each user device (a user terminal or a recording and reproducing unit, for example) and giving a license for using the digital work for each user device;
ii) Directly collecting a use fee (registration fee) from the device of the user who has been granted a license for using the digital work; and
iii) Distributing the collected use fee to rightful claimants.
In view of these conditions, the present invention has been provided.
It is a first object of the present invention to provide a digital work utilization monitoring method for facilitating an appropriate and smooth distribution of digital works by making it possible to monitor the digital works to determine whether or not the digital works used by a user have been granted a license for using the digital work in the above new system.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a utilization monitoring system directly used to perform this method.
It is a third object of the present invention to provide a digital work recording unit which is a component of the utilization monitoring system.
It is a fourth object of the present invention to provide a digital work reproducing unit which is a component of the utilization monitoring system.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, the first object is achieved by a method of monitoring use of digital works, comprising the steps of:
(a) registering a digital work in a rights registration database according to an identification code of the digital work;
(b) receiving an application of permission for a use of the digital work, together with the identification code of the digital work used by a user and an identification code of a user device;
(c) collating the identification code of the digital work and the identification code of the user device with said rights registration database on the basis of the application of the permission for using the digital work and, if the permission for using the digital work is granted, issuing a license including the identification code of the user device; and
(d) embedding the license in the digital work by means of a digital watermark so that the user can use the digital work with the license in the user device.
Unless the identification code of the user device is registered for the digital work, it is checked whether or not a fee has been paid from the user device before granting the license. If there is no payment of the fee, preferably a warning is transmitted to the user. To add a license to the digital work, a license issued at every change of a user device can be readably added or written side by side. A renewal of a license, however, is preferable by replacing an old license with a new one in order to prevent a degradation of a quality of the work (an image quality or a sound quality).
The second object is achieved by a system for monitoring use of digital works, comprising:
a rights registration database for registering a digital work and a user device with identification codes, the use device being used by a user for recording and reproducing the digital work;
a user-side encoder, having
an application sending section, arranged in the user device, for sending out an application of permission for a use of a digital work with work and device identification codes, the work identification code being an identification code of the digital work used in said user device, and the device identification code being an identification code of said user device, and
a license embedding section for embedding a license including said device identification code into the digital work by means of a digital watermark on the basis of a license grant instruction output by a digital rights center described below; and
a digital rights center, having
an application receiving server for receiving said work and device identification codes from said application sending section and for collating said work and device identification codes with said rights registration database, and
a license issuing server for granting the license including said device identification code to said license embedding section if the utilization permission is granted.
It is preferable to provide an accounting system in this utilization monitoring system and to grant a new license on condition that the system has received a payment of a registration fee. In this case, there are provided a payment processing section and an accounting server in the encoder and the digital rights center, respectively. Additionally, an accounting database is provided in the monitoring system. If an identification code of a user is not registered for the applied digital work, the application receiving server requests a final application to the payment processing section. The payment processing section sends the final application to the accounting server and pays the registration fee to the accounting system. Then, the accounting server sends a grant instruction to the license issuing server and the license embedding section embeds the license in the digital work on the basis of the license grant instruction sent from the license issuing server to the user. In this procedure, a result of the processing is stored in the accounting database or the rights registration database.
The user device for recording and reproducing the digital work comprises a computer (a personal computer (PC)), and the computer can be previously connected to the digital rights center via an information network such as the Internet or the WWW (a computer network). If the digital rights center is connected to a large number of users via the information network in this manner, the digital rights center can monitor use of digital works having no license or use of digital works having an identification code of a different user via the information network.
For example, the digital rights center can find out a source of a digital work used in a home page of a user by using a known search engine software to monitor a presence or absence of an appropriate license. If a digital work is used inappropriately or illegally, the digital rights center can send a warning to the user via the information network.
A plurality of digital rights centers (DRCs) may be connected to each other via an information network such as the Internet. In this condition, digital works can be circulated among the DRCs, by which the market can be further expanded. For example, by arranging a digital rights center for an area such as a country, digital works can be freely distributed crossing the barriers of national boundaries between different countries. In this case, accounting processing of each area can be performed within the area in principle.
Preferably the plurality of DRCs are previously classified. For example, they are classified into a supervisory or world wide digital rights center in the highest rank, an area digital rights center in a middle rank, and a terminal digital rights center in the lowest rank. In this condition, a single area digital rights center is arranged for each country so that accounting processing in each country is performed in its area digital rights center while distributions of digital works between different countries and their accounting processing are performed via the world wide digital rights center, which facilitates a smooth distribution of digital works and maintaining an order in addition to facilitating accounting processing between different currencies.
The third object is achieved by a digital work recording unit used for the digital work utilization monitoring system comprising a user-side encoder having the application sending section and the license embedding section, and a recording section for recording a digital work having a license embedded by means of a digital watermark into a detachable storage medium.
The fourth object is achieved by a digital work reproducing unit used together with the digital work recording unit comprising a reproducing section for reading contents recorded in the storage medium and a protector. The protector has a previously stored identification code of the digital work recording unit and inhibits an output of the digital work read by the reproducing section, if the license added to the digital work read by the reproducing section does not match the identification code of the digital work recording unit.